Board Members

David Hind (Chair)

David Hind has been Chair since 2009. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor and part time Director of External Relations at the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Sydney. He retired as Managing Director of BOC South Pacific in 2005, having had previous appointments with them in Thailand (twice), the UK (twice) and in Japan.

David was Chair of the Australian National Training Authority (ANTA), Chair of Skills Tasmania and President of The Business Higher Education Roundtable (B-HERT). He was a board member of children’s cancer charity Redkite. He has an honours degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Sydney and is a Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE), a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) and a Fellow of Engineers Australia (IEAust). He is the “Entrepreneur of the Year” for Engineers Australia Sydney Division for 2016.

John Altmann

John Altmann is a lawyer from Melbourne, Australia, with a practice specialising in the structuring and governance of commercial, charitable and social enterprises. He is also an ordained Anglican minister and the founder of The Grace Foundation, a public charitable company that has been an early stage and follow on investor in Barefoot Power.

John has been extensively involved in evaluating and making social impact investments in Australia, Tanzania and Cambodia. He currently serves on the board of a number of Australian charities as well as the board of Barefoot Power since 2010. He holds degrees in Law with honours from the University of Melbourne, Arts, and Theology from Ridley College Melbourne.

Harry Andrews

Harry is a co-founder of Barefoot Power with 13 years in the renewable energy sector. He has experience in Asia, Africa and the Pacific. He established and managed operations in Africa for Barefoot Power, project managed renewable energy studies and projects with Hydro Tasmania and the Fiji Electricity Authority and managed the Remote Renewable Power Generation Program (RRPGP) with the Tasmanian Government. Further, in Australia Harry was recently Operations Manager for a solar wholesale company and a Director of an energy franchise network - Planet Power. Harry has a bachelor degree in Environmental Studies with post graduate qualification in Environmental Impact Assessment. Harry is currently completing his masters in International Relations.

Dirk Kam

Active in Africa for over four decades, Dirk Kam has worked for UNDP in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and - through the Netherlands-based Mesics Foundation, which he founded in 1998 - on small scale development projects that stimulate self-reliance. Dirk is also the principal of Kam Investments, a social investment fund focusing on African small-to-medium enterprises that create valuable products or services and provide local income generating prospects.

Dirk joined Barefoot Power as a shareholder in 2006. He has continued to invest over the past 10 years, from 2011 to 2015 served as Country Manager of Barefoot Power in Uganda, and joined the board in 2016 with special focus on Barefoot Power’s African operations.

Dirk is author of “Illuminating Africa”, on how to do good and do well at the same time in Africa. Although he and his wife Pauline returned to the Netherlands from Uganda in 2015, Dirk travels frequently to Africa. His daughters Margot is based in Nairobi where she works for Kam Investments.